“Of course. Thank you, Mr. Blakesly. You are most gracious.”
The trip back to Great New York was not jolly. Napoleon hated it and let it be known. Jerry was patient but airsick. By the time they grounded the van Vogels were not on speaking terms.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. van Vogel. The shares were simply not available. We should have had proxy on the O’Toole block but someone tied them up an hour before I reached them.”
“Blakesly.”
“Undoubtedly. You should not have tipped him off; you gave him time to warn his employers.”
“Don’t waste time telling me what mistakes I made yesterday. What are you going to do today?”
“My dear Mrs. van Vogel, what can I do? I’ll carry out any instructions you care to give.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. You are supposed to be smarter than I am, that’s why I pay you to do my thinking for me.”
Mr. Haskell looked helpless.
His principal struck a cigarette so hard she broke it. “Why isn’t Weinberg here?”
“Really, Mrs. van Vogel, there are no special legal aspects. You want the stock; we can’t buy it nor bind it. Therefore — ”
“I pay Weinberg to know the legal angles. Get him.”
Weinberg was leaving his office; Haskell caught him on a chase-me circuit.
“Sidney,” Haskell called out. “Come to my office, will you? Oscar Haskell.”
“Sorry. How about four o’clock?”
“Sidney, I want you-now!” cut in the client’s voice. “This is Martha van Vogel.”
The little man shrugged helplessly. “Right away,” he agreed. That woman-why hadn’t he retired on his one hundred and twenty-fifth birthday, as his wife had urged him to?
Ten minutes later he was listening to Haskell’s explanations and his client’s interruptions. When they had finished he spread his hands. “What do you expect,
Mrs. van Vogel? These workers are chattels. You have not been able to buy the property rights involved; you are stopped. But I don’t see what you are worked up about. They gave you the worker whose life you wanted preserved.”
She spoke forcefully under her breath, then answered him –“That’s not important.
What is one worker among millions? I want to stop this killing, all of it.”
Weinberg shook his head. “If you were able to prove that their methods of disposing of these beasts were inhumane, or that they were negligent of their physical welfare before destroying them, or that the destruction was wanton — ”
“Wanton? It certain is!”
“Probably not in a legal sense, my dear lady. There was a case, Julius Hartman et al. vs. Hartman Estate, 1972, I believe, in which a permanent injunction was granted against carrying out a term of the will which called for the destruction of a valuable collection of Persian cats. But in order to use that theory you would have to show that these creatures, when superannuated, are notwithstanding more valuable alive than dead. You cannot compel a person to maintain chattels at a loss.”
“See here, Sidney, I didn’t get you over here to tell me how this can’t be done.
If what I want isn’t legal, then get a law passed.”
Weinberg looked at Haskell, who looked embarrassed and answered, “Well, the fact of the matter is, Mrs. van Vogel, that we have agreed with the other members of the Commonwealth Association not to subsidize any legislation during the incumbency of the present administration.”
“How ridiculous! Why?”
“The Legislative Guild has brought out a new fair-practices code which we consider quite unfair, a sliding scale which penalizes the well-to-do-all very nice sounding, with special provisions for nominal fees for veterans’ private bills and such things-but in fact the code is confiscatory. Even the Briggs Foundation can hardly afford to take a proper interest in public affairs under this so-called code.”
“Hmmph! A fine day when legislators join unions-they are professional men.
Bribes should be competitive, Get an injunction.”
“Mrs. van Vogel,” protested Weinberg, “how can you expect me to get an injunction against an organization which has no legal existence? In a legal sense, there is no Legislative Guild, Just as the practice of assisting legislation by subsidy has itself no legal existence.”
“And babies come under cabbage leaves. Quit stalling me, gentlemen. What are you going to do?”